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Classical music: Compositions

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Instruments in Infobox

As discussed on Classical music (when the template was designed and again now), each individual instrument is important, for example the horn for exactly one aria. "Instruments" appear at the very end of the box, I don't understand how anybody who read so far would be "intimidated". Please consider to restore information that would help interested readers. The abbreviations are standard for publishing, well known, each with a link to what it stands for, and a link to a table of all of them. Why should knowledge be limited to the level of those who wouldn't bother to look up what an abbr means? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:15, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Hello Gerda! You had previously argued that infoboxes should be for those who know nothing about the topic. It would be very unlikely for such people to know anything about standards in music publishing. They would thus be very confused, even intimidated, to see "3Tr Ti Co 2Ft, 2Ob 2Oa 2Fg 2Vl Va Bc" in an overview - if you don't know what those mean, it looks like gobbledygook. Sure, there are tooltips, but not everyone knows about or can use those, and as said in the discussion you mention it may not be clear even what kind of instrument "trumpet" refers to. Listing the full names would be unwieldy, as would be explaining how the instrumentation varies over the course of the entire mass (as would be necessary for "instrumentation" to have much meaning). It's much clearer and more accessible to explain instrumentation in the article itself. After all, you suggested that we should keep it simple, right? Hope that helps you understand. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:06, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I responded at Talk:St Matthew Passion structure: Trying to understand, but unconvinced, sorry. - Did you see where the link on "Scoring" takes you? Your quote above is a bit misleading, it said "instruments 3Tr Ti Co 2Ft, 2Ob 2Oa 2Fg 2Vl Va Bc", - I would think that people reading on a composition would get "instruments" as "musical instruments", and those who know more get the details. Please note, that this is not the article on the Mass in B minor, but its structure, addressing those who want to know the bit more. It's a work in progress. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:37, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that confused readers who just want an overview should be made to read a whole other article on a different topic just to understand this stream of letters? That seems a bit counterproductive when the infobox is, as you have previously argued, meant to be a quick overview. It would be much simpler to give the explanation about the instrumentation of the mass in this article's text, where it belongs. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:06, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

You misunderstood. I give those who know the abbreviations (without explanation) a short way to the scoring, and offer a longer way to the others, - you cut the short way. Please read {{infobox Bach composition}}. - Messiah structure has a similar list of instruments, the article received more than 2000 views when Messiah was TFA, nobody made a comment about being confused or mystified, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:20, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

No, your explanation seems consistent with my understanding. As to Messiah, having no complaints doesn't mean no one was confused - the people most likely not to be able to understand the tooltips are also most likely not to be able to post on talk. Or maybe people just ignored the infobox ;-) Nikkimaria (talk) 18:35, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

If they ignored it, it could be as I prefer, no? - So much talk about people wanting articles their way, without an infobox, or with a collapsed one. I like it open and detailed, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:22, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

If they ignored it, then surely it would make more sense not to have one at all? I know you want things your way. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:43, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I slept over this - not well - and arrived at the following thought: the abbreviations are internationally understood, therefore I would like to have them visible at least "also", for those who are familiar with "Fg" but don't know what a bassoon is, as a little service - needing only a few extra characters - to the international community. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:47, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Surely it would be more helpful for the international community to read an article in their own language, rather than trying to decode what our words are? Besides, the abbreviations are not even close to being universally known. I suppose if you insisted you could have something like "bassoon (Fg)" in the article text, but that does seem a bit silly. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:32, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

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